Plimoth Cinema

June 26 to July 9

Every Little Step

Rated PG-13, 1 hour and 36 minutes

A film about a musical that is itself about the casting of a musical, this documentary takes viewers inside the makings of A Chorus Line. Much of it focuses on the casting process for the musical’s 2005 revival, though it also covers the show’s many incarnations and original inspiration. in 1974, choreographer Michael Bennett saw the potential for a spectacular show in the recorded late-night conversations of several stage performers. One year–and a lot of labor–later, A Chorus Line premiered to high acclaim, and would turn out to be a timeless work. Every Little Step spans the next few decades with rare footage and fresh interviews, and the show’s history unfolds in a world filled with war, anxiety, and political change. As casting is done for the revival, audiences see how much times have changed in the light of media outlets like MySpace and American Idol. As viewers get to know the actors behind the production, the realms of theater and reality blur. With its underdog heroes and self-reflexive narrative, A Chorus Line is understandably appealing to today’s reality-show audiences. The film is the joint effort of directors James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, whose backgrounds as theatre producers, filmmakers, and documentarians combine to create a film that manages to be not only educational but as entertaining as its subject.

July 10 to July 16

Lymelife

Rated R, 1 hour and 39 minutes

Lymelife is a story about the dark side of suburban paradise in the 1970s, and the loss of innocence that occurs within two deeply troubled families. The film revolves around an awkward, sensitive 15-year old boy Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin), whose family stability is shaken when an outbreak of Lyme disease spreads illness and paranoia around him. Scott’s parents — his workaholic father, Mickey (Alec Baldwin) and overprotective mother, Brenda (Jill Hennessy) — are on the verge of divorce, and his older brother Jim (Kieran Culkin) is about to ship off for war. Scott has also fallen in love with his next door neighbor, the beautiful Adrianna Bragg (Emma Roberts), who seems to be the only person in the world who understands him. Adrianna comes from an equally troubled, less affluent, family whose uptight mother Melissa (Cynthia Nixon) is carrying on a not-so-clandestine love affair, while her father Charlie (Timothy Hutton) is slowly slipping away from the effects of the disease. Profoundly funny and deeply moving, Lymelife looks at first love and family dynamics during a time of drastic economic and cultural change.

July 17 to July 23

Local Color

Rated R, 1 hour and 47 minutes

In George Gallo’s wise and warm coming-of-age tale, a young artist seeks inspiration from an experienced painter and liberation from his father’s worn-out ideas. Quiet, dreamy John (Trevor Morgan) would rather visit museums or paint than play baseball or chase girls, and this worries his rough-hewn, homophobic, fire-breathing father John Sr. (Ray Liotta). When a local art aficionado turns John on to the impressionist paintings of reclusive Russian immigrant Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who just happens to live nearby, John impulsively decides to find Seroff in the hope that the Russian will take him on as a student. Unfortunately, their first meeting doesn’t quite go as planned: “I don’t teach and I don’t paint,” Seroff huffs, before slamming the door in John’s face. But John’s perseverance, coupled with his gifts of vodka, soon sways the gruff old maestro. As the summer progresses, both men discover new ways to see the world and all its colors. Mueller-Stahl anchors the film with wisdom and sly rage as the prickly, embittered Seroff, while Morgan conveys an appealing, youthful charm as John. In his youth, director Gallo studied with the landscape painter George Cherepov and was later featured in three one-man exhibitions in New York. His love for painting, and for the respite it provides, is apparent in every frame of this gentle, inspired film.
– Tribeca Film Festival 2006 Program

July 24 to July 30

Departures

Rated PG-13, 2 hours and 11 minutes
Japanese with subtitles

Departures follows Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and who is suddenly left without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled Departures thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a “Nokanshi” or “encoffineer,” a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of “Nokanshi,” acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living. — Regent Releasing